


We Need to Talk

by duc



Series: We Need to Talk [1]
Category: Avengers (Comic)
Genre: M/M, Trans Character, mention of mutilating injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-04
Updated: 2011-12-04
Packaged: 2017-10-26 21:48:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duc/pseuds/duc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, (Earth-3490) Natasha isn't really sure how to tell her husband she'd rather be an Anthony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Need to Talk

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Queer_Fest. I hope this is what you wanted anon. I had a lot of fun imagining this verse if not writing the fic (the fic was hard). I developed Tony based on my feelings and what I thought fit the character best.
> 
> Pronons are all over the place due to different PoV and flashbacks.
> 
> Dinahqueen cheerleaded , advised and betaed from the time I started writing to the very end. Any errors left are my own.
> 
> I do not own the characters, Marvel does.

“Honey, we need to talk…"

 

 

… No, not that. No reason to make him run for the hills right from the start. “I need to talk to you?” Marginally better. “Honey, I need to talk to you about…”

Tony sighed, slumping into the swirling chair.

 How did you go on about that particular revelation? `I’m really a man.’ was  probably not a good idea, at least not right off the bat. Easing into it that was the key. But Tony couldn’t figure out how to ease into telling your husband his wife wanted a sex change.

With a push, the chair rolled away from the table.

It was going to be horrible. Tony had warned him. Before they started dating, while they were dating, before they got married….

Tony hooked a foot under the table and brought the chair back against it.

Steve said he was more than aware of Tony’s faults, that he knew what kind of girlfriend/wife she was going to be, that he loved her as she was –at least one of them was happy- and that he had no wish to change her.

To be fair, he did deal with Tony pretty well, always had, even fresh from the 40s.

 

 _Tony’s head shot up when AC/DC suddenly cut off mid chorus._

 _“Hey!”_

 _She wasn’t shirking her responsibilities, she wasn’t. She was all dressed up in a nice suit that had been tailored so she didn’t look like she was wearing her boyfriend’s clothes, her presentation was safe and sound in her briefcase, and she had read and revised the propositions of the other scientists. She was just killing a little time playing around with the armor’s long range sensors before she left._

 _She opened her mouth to tell the interloper just that when she saw it wasn’t Pepper, Happy or even Jarvis. It was Hank followed by a tall attractive man with blond hair. Captain America in civilian’s clothing._ _Tony’s heart sped without her consent.  Hank made a beeline for her but the captain stayed back, craning his neck to look at her workshop, only to take a hasty step back when the robotic arm from the last factory overall swung to poke him in his very well defined chest._

 _“Mickey!” Tony called as she stepped around her desk to come up to Hank. “Leave him alone.”  The arm retracted with a disappointed wine._

 _“I’m sorry,” she told Captain America, who eyed Mickey suspiciously, before stepping up to Hank and Tony. “He gets curious.”_

 _Captain America wrenched his gaze away from Tony’s stack of computer screens to look at her and then at Mickey._

 _“Ah,” he said, voice non-committal. If Tony had had to describe his expression at that point she would have said he looked almost frazzled.  She fought to keep her own expression level. She had promised herself when they had defrosted him that she wouldn’t make a fool of herself. No embarrassingly obvious fanboying. It had been a lot easier with the helmet on. The man was over 6 foot- 6’2” if his official stats were to be believed- and built like a linebacker. A legend made flesh again breathing right in front of Tony. And he looked like he was afraid something was going to bite. The contrast was surprisingly cute._

 _She clapped her hands and rubbed them together. “So what can I do for you gentlemen?” She had to distract herself from that line of thought before she reached a point of no return to dignity._

 _Hank turned away from the readings he had been scrutinizing but the Captain spoke first._

 _“Thank you, sir. We came to see Ms. Stark. Is she here?”_

 _Out of the corner of her eye she saw Hank look up at the ceiling. Tony beamed._

 _“You’re speaking to her right now.”_

 _Captain America’s eyes widened then went up and down Tony, stopping to rest on her face. She could see him reinterpret her appearance, fitting previous data into a new pattern._

 _“Oh. I am so sorry. I…”_

 _Tony clapped him on the back, chuckling._

 _“Captain America here has agreed to join the Avengers,” Hank interrupted before Tony could tell him that it happened frequently with people who didn’t have half of the extenuating circumstances he had._

 _“Really? That is great news,” She held out a hand. “Welcome aboard, Captain.”_

 _He took it gingerly, seeming to fumble with the grip for a second before shaking it._

 _“Thank you...”_

 _“You’re welcome. Now, I’m assuming you didn’t come down here just to tell me that.” Tony had a healthy- some said astronomical- ego, but even she wasn’t self centered enough to think that Hank and Captain America (Captain America!) would have gone out of their way to inform their sponsort in person when an email would have done the job._

 _“That means he’ll need a communicard.”_

 _“Right. We can do that right now. I have a couple of blank ones around here, just in case.”_

 _Something tingled in the back of Tony’s mind as she walked to the drawers, as if there was something else she was supposed to be doing, but she quashed it easily. Captain America. Whatever it was, Pepper would understand this was an opportunity that just had to be taken._

 _“Thank you, ma’am.”_

 _She forced herself to step away from him to go get the card._

 _“Oh, please,” she said patting his arm before she got too far away. “Call me Tony.”_

 _She made a sign for them to follow her. “Come over here, Captain.”_

 _Hank stepped up to her readily but the Captain stayed back. “My name is Steve Rogers.” He said. “If I am going to stay and live here... Thor and the Wasp said the Avengers all lived in this… house” He hesitated over the word house as if he wasn’t sure it was the appropriate word._

 _“Yes they do, Wasp and Ant-man have their own home in New York, and we’re not exactly sure where Thor goes when he’s not here but they spend most of their times here. Aha!”_

 _She yanked one of the drawers open. A spring came flying it out of it. Right. Old circuitry and odds and ends. Wrong drawer. She closed it nonchalantly and looked back to see how Captain America was reacting. He was standing next to a square of fuselage –she was making the team a jet, it was bound to come in handy- poking it with a finger so she couldn’t tell if he had seen or not. She opened the drawer below and hit pay dirt._

 _“All righty, Steve. Can I call you Steve?” She turned long enough to see him nod. “This is your communicator,” She dropped the card in his hand. “We’ll have to load your picture on it, but let me show you how it works…”_

 

And that had been Captain America’s first meeting with Natasha, Antonia “Tony” Stark, as opposed to Iron Man. It was hard to pinpoint when Tony had fallen in love with Steve, and in fact it very well may have been a gradual thing. The starting point, though? Had to be that line: _“Thank you, sir. We came to see Ms. Stark. Is she here?”_

Tony’s gender issues and love of passing aside, he had used Ms. when he was about one of the only people Tony would have understood being called Miss from. What with him having only heard the term once or twice before. But he remembered.  It was the kind of tiny courtesy that was typically Steve, that showed that Captain America really was what it said on the tin and that had resurrected Tony’s childhood crush.

And Tony’s pathetic infatuation aside again, that sentence, and the rest of their first meeting was a pretty good sign of how Steve generally treated Tony: on Tony’s terms. Along with a respect for the scientist and industrialist that seemed to be beyond some 21st century people.

It was probably due to the fact that he had rebuilt his gender perception with Tony and Jan as a models of what 21st century women were, but –apart from a few incidents and missteps- he was always quick to accept the facets of Tony as Tony being a woman who simply liked what she liked.

Thinking back about it, it was very similar to what Maria Stark had thought.

 

 _“I wish I could be a boy.”_

 _Tony looked down from her Hershey bar just in time to see her mom’s sunglasses hit the floor of the foyer. Her mom bent over to pick them up and finished putting them in her purse. Then, she took Tony by the hand and led her to the garden._

 _Tony looked back at the house with confusion. Normally she had a snack in the kitchen with Jarvis, why were they going into the garden? Her mom sat them down on the bench under the rose arch and took one of Tony’s hands in hers._

 _“Natasha, I’m going to tell you something really important so I need you to pay attention, all right?”_

 _Tony frowned at the use of Natasha. She couldn’t remember when people had started to call her Tony but she knew she preferred it to her full name. But her mom was watching her intently so she only nodded._

 _“There is nothing wrong with being a girl. You hear me?” She put a hand on Tony’s short hair, gently pushing a lock off her forehead. “Nothing. It doesn’t make you any less or any… any less.”_

 _Tony nodded again, wondering why her mom was telling her that._

 _“I know it can be a little confusing, being around men all day. But this is the 20 th century; there is nothing a boy can do that you can’t. You can do anything you want.” _

_“Like asking for a remote controlled car for Christmas?” Tony asked for clarification, suddenly remembering Mrs. Worthington’s scrunched-up face when Tony had talked about the shiny red pick-up she wanted. She had thought the woman just didn’t like pick-ups but maybe it had been like for her hair._

 _Her mom smiled and lost her scary intense expression. “Yes exactly, sweetheart. You can get a remote controlled car for Christmas. So you see? You have no reason to wish to be a boy.”_

 _Tony couldn’t find any flaw in the logic. “I guess.”_

 _“And never let anyone tell you different.”_

 

This conversation right there? Tony thought, absentmindedly gesturing with a hand. Was probably at least partially responsible for years of confusion. It was not that Tony was ungrateful.

She… No. If she… _He_ was going to do this; he was going to use the right pronoun. Ok, deep breath.

He knew he was lucky. His mother (and his father, really, although that was another story) had never tried to curb any of his interests, except for buying a lot of pink (Tony had always loved bright colors). She had stopped once Tony told her he didn’t want to wear it anymore though so he didn’t think it counted.

She had let him cut his hair short at four. And anyone thinking it was a small thing hadn’t been there to see society’s reaction to Maria Stark chopping her baby girl’s hair off. Fucking hell, Tony’s social skills had been pretty shoddy back then and even he had noticed the frigid disapproval.

He has read enough stories on the internet to know how bad he could have had it. And yet, there was something subtly grating about their attitude.

The really confusing thing was: there _was_ nothing wrong with being a girl. Tony had everything he wanted out of life: a workshop, Stark Industries and Iron Man. He even had things he hadn’t known he wanted, like a loving husband, to name only one.

There was no unrelenting despair, no virulent disgust (At least not after 15 or so, and everyone hated their body at puberty, right?.) He was _happy_.

… And completely off topic. He banged his head on his work station. Steve. Let’s focus on Steve and forget the trip down memory lane. What was he going to tell him? He rested his  arms on the bench and put his chin on them.

Because understanding or not? This was so not what he had signed on for. This, in fact, could be considered a major breach of contract. Not that Tony wanted to break up the marriage. To the contrary! Now that he had acquired the proverbial ball and chain he found himself really fond of his new statue.

Oh shit! Same sex marriages were not legal in New York. What if they dissolved it when Tony came out? _Breathe in. Breathe out._ Focus on Steve. Don’t borrow trouble.

Tony stood up, feeling a little shaky from that particularly unwelcome thought. His eyes went to the shelf that had once housed his alcohol. Sometimes he really wanted a drink.

 _Steve_. He forced himself to think. He had learned years ago that Steve liked men too. (Halloween, a keg of Asgardian mead and a game of Truth or Dare. Ah, the good old days.) So he was probably not going to be horribly repulsed by the … new was not quite the right adjective- Tony. Maybe. He had dated and married a woman (that he knew) after all and bisexuality did not ward against transphobia. _Breathe._

 _But…_ Tony stalked toward the far wall and his mirror. _It was not like it was going to change much._ He took off his shirt and tank top in one move, tossed them to the side and looked at his reflection.

He had a pretty face. His feminine features made him look cute and boyish even though he was in his 30s now, but he had no real wish to change it.

His hips made his jeans look wrong, but there was nothing you could do about that and it was a subtle wrong that wasn’t too jarring as long as you didn’t pay attention. Before Afghanistan, shrapnel, field surgery and the free mastectomy that had come with it, Tony had been a small B-cup and he had the hips that went with it.

He still had a hard time accepting that the chest in the mirror was his, now that Extremis had removed the extensive scar tissue that had been a part of him for so long, but the flatness was an old friend. By the time he had gotten back to the states, being able to have a flat torso without the help of bindings had felt so natural it had honestly taken him a few minutes to understand what the army doctor had meant when he had started to babble about plastic surgeons and reconstructive surgery.

If his hips were the body part he was the least fond of, his shoulders were his favourite. Nice and broad, not ripped, but wiry. A swimmer’s shoulders, or more to the point a smith’s. They felt utterly right.

 Bottom surgery had never been an option. Now, Tony guessed he could probably program Extremis to grow him a fully functioning penis, the way it had grown him a new heart. He already had the sneaking suspicion it was fiddling with his hormone levels (since he had injected himself he had put on muscle mass, his period was even more elusive than usual, and he thought his jaws had been getting thicker). But honestly, he really didn’t like the idea of screwing around with something as important as his sexual organ.

So, that was it. He spread his arms. This was what Anthony was going to look like, just like Natasha, because Natasha had pretty much been Anthony for years. He was just making it official. Nothing big there.

He snorted.

Who was he kidding? Even if Steve was okay with it- and that was still highly debatable- , the press was going to have a field day, his board of directors  a collective conniption and S.H.I.E.L.D and the government… let’s not think about that.

Even if Steve was ok with it, the superhero community was barely starting to regain its balance after Registration. It didn’t need one of its spokesperson and the Registration poster girl seemingly losing her marbles –because that’s how it was going to look like- and deciding – at 34 fucking years old- that she wanted a sex change.

His company was healthy and growing now but it was still fragile, especially since it had taken some hit when Tony had to go public about his identity as Iron Man in the middle of a climate that wasn’t exactly superhero friendly. It did not need its CEO seemingly losing her marbles.

Steve, who had always been way too accepting of his many fucks up, did not need the shitstorm when his life was just going back to what passed for normal for them.

It wasn’t fair to any of them, Steve most of all. Tony turned around, leaving his shirt where it laid. He stalked back to his desk, kicking a box of bolts on the way there. He slumped on the chair again.

There was a reason it had taken him until he was 34 before he came to that particularly inconvenient realisation. There _was_ nothing wrong with being a girl. He wasn’t drowning; sometimes he just lacked oxygen for a little while.

He didn’t have to do it, really. He had lived 34 years as a woman, and it had been fine. Not always roses and sunshine, but 99% of the really shitty stuff that had happened to him had not been due to that. So that was it! He was going to continue as usual and there would be no need for media storms –or awkward conversations with Steve.

He hopped back on his feet and headed for the lift, feeling like huge weight –the heavy weight of decision- was suddenly lifted from his shoulder. Dinner was probably just starting, and he was hungry after all that brooding.

 He got as far as the living room. Someone, maybe Peter, maybe one of the Young Avengers, had left the TV on. He automatically flexed Extremis to turn it off but just as a he was metaphorically putting his finger on the switch, a picture of the Iron Man armor in mid-flight appeared and he paused.

 _“… definitely back to normal here in New York. This morning, a robbery in process was stopped by the Avengers, led by Captain America and Iron Woman…”_

Tony blinked and the TV screen turned black. He tore his eyes away from it before he decided to throw something –preferably a very heavy something- at it. Then he turned back to the lift, and banged his head against the door all the way down. Iron Fucking _Woman._

Iron Man, by the way, had been an accident. Tony hadn’t had the time to really think about names before the press started to print Iron Man everywhere, but if he had he would have gone for something gender neutral, like Repulsor or Arc Blaster - shut up, he had been young and you’re allowed to be in love with your shiny new jet boots .

In fact Tony had been a mostly even mix of amusement and annoyance at first. First of all, where in hell had they gotten the idea that it was made of iron? Granted gold titanium alloy wasn’t the most obvious conclusion, but steel would have been a hell of a lot more practical than iron. Second, the mark 1 armor had been huge and bulky by nature, why did that have to scan as male?

So Iron Man wouldn’t have been the kind of name he would have chosen, but it had been firmly established before he could do anything about it and he hadn’t had a better idea. Also, it was kinda cool. So he went with it. He also never corrected anybody when they referred to him in the masculine. Nominally to protect his secret identity, but he always got a thrill when he heard people call him “sir”, “he”, “him”, etcetera…  

Then they formed the Avengers, and he offered his family Mansion as headquarters –strange to think of the mansion as his when it had been the Avengers’ for so long- and suddenly Iron Man’s social life was at times more alive than Tony’s.

Thinking back it had been pretty idiotic of Tony to hide his secret identity from the team for a whole four and a half years, but at the time he hadn’t been able to help it. Iron Man was this whole new person. He was a hero. He wasn’t a fuck up who made land mines and sold them to the highest bidder. Or the moron who decided to go get drunk in strip clubs instead of going to his board meetings so that he missed his weapons being sold on the black market where they ended up killing American kids not old enough to fucking drink legally. And also, yeah, he was male.

When the team did discover that Iron Man and Tony Stark were the same person, Tony was once again blessed with more luck than he probably deserved. After a while, a convention had developed on its own to maintain his secret identity.

Like Peter beautifully put it:

 _“Do you guys always do that?” Peter asked from his place on the ceiling._

 _“Do what?” Steve asked, as he cleaned up the coffee table._

 _Tony turned her head toward the conversation even as she was absent-mindedly following the journalists from the security cameras to be sure they left the building._

 _“Speak about Tony like she’s a guy?”_

 _Tony blinked and cut the feeds. She looked at Steve, but it was Jessica who spoke._

 _“Well, her superhero name is Iron_ Man,” _She said. “Her secret identity would be pretty thin if they still used the feminine pronoun.”_

 _“No. But they’ve used it when it was just us and we know he’s Tony. Ghaaa! See? I’m doing it too.”_

 _Steve chuckled and then put a hand behind his head. “I don’t know. It’s just what we do. I guess it felt strange to use he in public and she in private so we just use he for Iron Man all the time.”_

 _Peter nodded. “Ok. So it’s like for a drag queen… Drag king, I meant drag king.”_

 _Steve blushed. God knows why, when it wasn’t even about him and Tony felt herself smirk._

 _“Yes, Peter,” she said. “It’s exactly like a drag king.”_

 

So there had been one fallout of Registration he absolutely hadn’t seen coming.

 

 _“…So you have this for the sale department and you have to sign the approval for the new advertisement campaign. Oh. And I’ve compiled a sample of articles so you can see what’s the general feeling toward you now that the surprise has died down a little. It’s in your email.”_

 _“Ok,” Tony said. She picked up her pen to sign the document Pepper had placed in front of her and opened her email inbox at the same time. She opened the first file without paying much attention, until one word popped up._

 _“Pepper,” she called._

 _“Yes?”_

 _“That article is calling me Iron woman!”_

 _“That seems to be the main name that came up.” Pepper’s voice sounded way too calm and distracted for the words that were coming out of her mouth._

 _“You mean they’re all like that!”_

 _She opened all the files and her office went out of focus has her field of vision filled with all the articles standing in rows in front of her eyes. She gave Extremis a command to highlight and watched with growing horror has Iron woman block after Iron Woman block dotted the pages._

 _“Well, a few are using Iron Maiden but Iron Woman seems to be the most popular.”_

 _One article came to the fore front and Tony read the title._

“Iron Man is Really Iron Maiden.”

 _“At least that one’s got some class,” she said, feeling like she was going to wake up at any moment._

 _Next to her, Pepper, who had never been impressed by her taste in music, snorted._

 _“Then tell them you want to be called Iron Maiden.”_

 _“What’s wrong with Iron Man?” Her voice came out more plaintive than she had expected. She stared at the pages, wishing she had hard copies so that she could set them on fire. She wanted to throw up._

 _She felt a hand on her shoulder and the pages dissolved. She blinked up at pepper who was looking at her worriedly._

 _“You know they’re not going to call you Iron Man anymore, don’t you?” She asked gently._

But it’s my name. _Tony prevented herself from saying._

 _How could she have not seen that coming? This had to be what being kicked in the balls felt like._

 

It was not nice to realise at 34 that you’ve been using a crutch most of your adult life. It was even less nice when the cause of the realisation was that the crutch, an integral part of your adult identity really, was suddenly wrenched away. Each time Tony heard or saw Iron Woman written somewhere or he wanted to retch.

The worst part was that people expected him to be relived. One journalist had called it “Being finally free from having to masquerade as a man.” The Avengers had an interview with her in a week. She was going to bring it up, he knew it.

Tony liked to think of himself as adaptable. The consummate futurist. But it turned out he wasn’t that adaptable. He had to find a way to break it to Steve before the next week because there was only one way he was going to answer that question.

He looked at the garage’s clock. 7:40. He had been in here for two hours and hadn’t made any progress. He pinched the bridge of his nose. He needed a nice gentle way to ease into it. Something other than leaving guides to transitioning on Steve’s computer, because while that might seem like a cunning use of available technology, Tony had a sinking feeling it was a big no no on the healthy relationship front. Not to mention, the cowardly way out.

Soooo… Honey, I need to talk to you about….

 

 

Epilogue:

 

"Steve?"

"Hey, Tony. You missed dinner."

"I’m not really hungry. I need to talk to you."

"OK."

"I'm changing my name to Anthony"

He had never been much good at easing into things anyway.


End file.
